“It’s true that I couldn’t defeat this demon, but it wasn’t just because I wasn’t strong enough. I was away for my work when the demon murdered my family.” She pauses. “I should have been there.” Her words are tight and clipped. “In the months prior to the murders Anna had been complaining that her father was distant. I thought she was just upset that I’d been traveling so much and was trying to get me to spend more time at home. I promised I’d make it up to her when my work was done.” Victoria swallows; the pain of making a promise to her daughter that she couldn’t keep is written on her face. Suddenly I’m able to see each of her sixty-seven years etched on her skin.
“Distant how?” Nolan asks.
“It’s hard to explain. At first it was small. Little things that only Anna or I would have been able to recognize. He still went to work, did his job, picked Anna up after school, bought groceries, made sure there was dinner on the table. Anna said he just seemed, somehow . . .” She trails off, searching for the right word.
“Absent,” I supply.
“Yes.” Victoria nods sadly. “Anna complained of missing him when he was right there with her.”
“Just like my mom.”
“Just like your mom,” Victoria agrees.
“But couldn’t you—I mean, luiseach can feel spirits, can’t they? Couldn’t you feel there was a demon in the house? I mean, when you were home?”
“So many spirits followed me everywhere. My mentor had trained me to tune them out—let another luiseach help them move on—so I could concentrate on our work.”
Victoria stands up and turns so that her back is to us. She takes a shallow, ragged breath, like she’s trying not to cry. I glance at Nolan. Maybe all these questions are too much for her. We’re practically forcing her to relive her family’s murder.
“I’m sorry—” I begin, but Victoria holds up her hand, cutting me off.
She turns around to face us, her pale face flushed with color. “You’re stronger than the demon. I promise you that.”
I shake my head. I’ve never felt strong. I get winded walking up a couple of flights of stairs. I’ve been picked last for every team in every gym class I’ve been in since kindergarten. “I can’t even kill a spider,” I insist, shuddering. “Believe me, I’m kind of a weakling.”
“You’re stronger than you know,” Victoria says, and it sounds like a command. “Your parents—” She pauses. “You are descended from two of the most powerful luiseach in history.”
Now it’s my turn to stand and turn my back on everyone else. Victoria does know who my birth parents are after all! Maybe all luiseach know, if my birth parents are two such powerful and important pillars of the community.
“Who are they?” I’m not sure I want to know, but I have to ask. Butterflies flutter in my belly, and I hold my breath as I wait for an answer.
“I can’t tell you that.”
I exhale. “Did you know they abandoned me?”
“It’s complicated—”
“Actually it’s not complicated. You don’t abandon a helpless baby.”
“One day you will understand. Your father—”
“I don’t have a father,” I say firmly, biting my lip to keep from crying. “I have a mother—one mother—and her name is Katherine Griffith. She’s the only mother I want. Believe me, I’m not interested in meeting the mother who left me all alone to be found at my mom’s hospital.”
“It wasn’t your mother who left you. Your father—he was trying to protect you.” She says it like it’s perfectly reasonable.
“That’s a pretty pathetic way to protect a baby.” Stubbornly, I brush away the tears streaming down my face.
I hear Nolan stand up behind me. I step away before he can try to put his arms around me. Still I can feel the heat of his body, just inches away from mine. Not as comforting as a hug, but it still feels good. Well, not actually good—nothing feels good right now—but better, somehow.
“I’m sorry,” Victoria says, “It will all become clear—”
“When?” I answer, turning around, my tears splashing hotly against my cheeks and chin. But I’m not sad anymore. I’m angry. “When will it be clear? Once the demon is exorcised using some kind of magical luiseach weapon that I can’t see? Once my mentor finally comes out of the shadows and reveals himself and explains why the test he set up for me put the only family I have—the only family I want, the person who would never choose to abandon me—in danger?”
Once more the warmth of Victoria’s house feels oppressive. I pull my hair into a ponytail and unwrap Mom’s scarf from around my neck. I walk to the window, throwing it open. The curtains blow back and I stand there, letting the wind wash over me.
“I’m beginning to think that luiseach—luiseaches, blah, whatever the plural is—are the bad guys. They desert their children. They place innocent people in jeopardy.” It actually feels good when the breeze makes goose bumps blossom on my arms and legs. I turn around to face Victoria, the wind at my back. “I don’t want anything to do with any of this,” I sniff, swallowing the lump in my throat and pressing the heel of my hand against my forehead.
“I know this is difficult,” Victoria says quietly. “There are so many questions I can’t answer.”
“Won’t answer,” I mumble, wiping away my remaining tears with my sleeve.
“But I can tell you that the first step toward clarity will come with freeing your mother from the demon’s hold—and even if you don’t want anything to do with any of this, I know that more than anything you want to save her.”
She’s right. Maybe my mentor designed it this way on purpose. You can’t exactly skip a test when the results are so important to you. I lower my hand from my forehead so that I’m covering my eyes.
I take a deep breath and drop my hands, shut the window, and walk back to the couch. I lift the knife off the floor and stare at it once more.
Still, all I see is a rusty old knife.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Heavy Metal
“Maybe it needs to be activated for Sunshine to see it,” Nolan offers.
“What do you mean, activated?” I don’t think it has an on-off switch.
He shrugs. “Maybe since . . . I don’t know. Maybe since you haven’t passed the test yet, you’re not able to see it.”
“But how can I pass the test if I can’t see the weapon I need in order to pass the test?” I ask wearily.
“Maybe it will show itself when you need it.”
I look at Victoria, who nods intently. “He could be right,” she says slowly. “Perhaps when the demon confronts you—with all of its strength and power—you will find the motivation you need to see the weapon.”
“Is that how you saw it?”
“It was given to me in a time of great need. I saw it immediately—but then, I needed it immediately.”
“And you’ve been able to see it since then, whether you need it or not?”
“I always see it in the form it was in the last time I used it.”
“But then can’t you use it on my mother? I mean, I know you’re not supposed to be a luiseach anymore, but if you can see the weapon—”
“It doesn’t work that way.” Victoria shakes her head. “It’s not my test to pass. Anyway, it would be useless to try right now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Confronting her now would be useless. You need to wait until the demon takes full possession of her.”
“Midnight on New Year’s Eve,” Nolan says slowly.
Victoria nods. “At any other time it will just be your mother you’re attacking, not the demon.”
“What does the weapon look like for you?” Nolan asks Victoria.
Victoria hesitates before answering, like she’s not sure whether she’s supposed to share that piece of information. Finally she responds. “It’s a rope.”
“A rope?” I echo. “That doesn’t sound particularly supernatural.”
Victoria smiles almost wistfu
lly, as though she’s remembering the days she wielded the rope with pleasure. “It wasn’t just any rope. It was a rope that was stronger than iron. Once bound by it, it was impossible to break free. It was a rope with edges as sharp as steel, so that even the slightest touch was like being cut by a knife.”
“Did you cut a lot of people doing luiseach work?” I ask, queasy at the thought of all that blood—another reason to give up my powers when this is all over.
“Just one,” she answers softly. “My husband.”
I loosen my grip on the knife the tiniest bit. “What?”
“By the time I arrived home it was too late.” Her usually melodic voice loses some of its music as she continues. “My husband and my daughter were already dead. Still, I grabbed my weapon and tied it around my husband, tighter and tighter. I thought I could squeeze the demon out, strangle him out. But a postmortem attack proved to be useless. The demon was already gone, and he’d taken my daughter’s spirit with him.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, blinking back tears. I imagine Victoria opening her front door, slipping off her coat, calling for her family and wondering why they weren’t answering. I imagine her walking up the stairs, never thinking for a second of the horrors that were waiting for her in her daughter’s bathroom. Maybe Anna’s body was floating in the bathtub, her cheeks still pink with life; perhaps her husband’s flesh was still warm when she wound her rope around it. I envision my graceful, composed art teacher wailing with grief. I can’t imagine anything more terrible. It makes me want to drop this knife and never pick it up again.
Instead, I force myself to tighten my grip.
“What if it doesn’t—” I pause, struggling to remember the word Victoria used earlier. “manifest for me in time?”
“It will,” Nolan says firmly.
“How do you know?”
“Because you’ll be ready to fight. You won’t be scared, and you won’t be weak. People find all kinds of hidden stores of strength when they’re fighting for their lives. They do things they never knew they were capable of.”
I shake my head. “But the demon can’t kill me, remember?”
“I know,” Nolan nods. “But it can kill me.”
“What do you mean?”
“At midnight on New Year’s Eve I’ll be standing right beside you. The demon will attack me—a human—the same way it attacked Anna, right?” He looks at Victoria for confirmation. She bows her head solemnly.
“When your mother tries to hurt me,” he continues, “the weapon will manifest. Because you’ll need it to protect me.”
“You don’t know that for sure. I can’t ask you to take that kind of risk.”
“It’s not a risk. Think about it. What more motivation could you possibly have? You’ll be saving your mother’s life—and mine. Two people you—” Nolan stops abruptly. “Two people you care about,” he finishes softly. “Anna’s spirit too. That’s three. Plus you’ll know exactly when the demon takes full possession of Kat, because that’s when she’ll try to hurt me. It could work.” He looks up at Victoria, his dirty-blond hair mussed like a little kid’s. “Ms. Wilde, what do you think?”
Nolan didn’t ask what I think, but if he had, I’d say that if this is what my mentor had planned, then whoever and wherever he is, he is a big fat sicko.
“Please call me Victoria, Nolan.” She sits down in the chair across from us. “It’s not ideal. But,” she adds slowly, “Nolan does have a point. Perhaps you’re the kind of person whose strengths manifest only when faced with the proper motivation.”
“Perhaps,” I echo. “But we don’t know for sure.”
“No,” Victoria agrees. “We don’t.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Happy New Year
The morning of New Year’s Eve I have trouble getting dressed. I know, I know—it’s the silliest of all possible problems I could have, considering the circumstances. Still, it’s really frustrating me that there doesn’t seem to be anything in my closet that’s appropriate to wear to an exorcism.
Not that I have any clue what a person is actually supposed to wear to an exorcism—I don’t think there’s an etiquette guide to cover this particular event—but all my clothes are so brightly colored, and it seems like the kind of thing you should wear dark colors to. Like you’re going to a funeral. Or robbing a house.
Or walking into battle.
I wish I had armor or camouflage, but I finally settle on the Levis I stole from Mom back in August and a navy blue top I found at my favorite thrift shop in Austin. It has tiny little white flowers embroidered on the cuffs of its long sleeves, but other than that, I think it is literally the darkest, plainest thing I own. Which feels like a kind of camouflage.
I slide Victoria’s knife from its hiding place beneath Dr. Hoo’s platform. Victoria made me take it home with me, just in case we were wrong about the whole midnight-on-New-Year’s-Eve thing. But it still hasn’t manifested itself into a powerful weapon that only a luiseach can wield. It’s still just a knife.
Now I walk around my room with the knife in my hand, holding it out in front of me like it’s a sword and I’m a master fencer. “En garde!” I shout to no one in particular.
I must look like a crazy person, swishing around the room with a knife. If Mom were to come in right now, surely she’d have me institutionalized.
But I know Mom won’t come in. She hasn’t stepped foot inside my room in weeks. Maybe she’s forgotten that I live here.
I jab the knife once more, and I swear I hear a giggle coming from the air above me. “You better not be laughing at me!” I whisper up to Anna, but I can’t help smiling a tiny smile myself. This morning we finished both our checkers game (she won) and our Monopoly game (I won).
Now that the fun is over, I say to her, “Let’s hope your mom knows what she’s talking about.”
Nolan comes over at 8 p.m., cradling a long, slim paper-bag-wrapped package in his arms. “For you.” He holds it out in front of him.
I peek inside. “Fireworks?”
“It is New Year’s Eve,” he answers, a mix of nerves and hope in his voice. “If all goes well, we’re going to have more than one reason to celebrate after midnight.”
I try to smile back at him, but my mouth won’t cooperate. Maybe after tonight I’ll never actually smile again. If I fail, what would I have to smile about, with my mother gone and forgotten?
“That’s awfully optimistic of you,” I finally manage to say.
“What can I say? I believe in you.”
I blush under his gaze, and he follows me into the kitchen, where I place the fireworks gingerly on the counter.
“And one more thing—” he adds, taking off his grandfather’s jacket. “For luck.” He slips his arms from the sleeves. He’s wearing a dark green, long-sleeved shirt underneath, jeans, and beat-up brown boots. He holds the jacket out to me, and when I don’t take it, he lifts it onto my shoulders. It feels so right that suddenly I know why I had so much trouble getting dressed this morning: I was waiting to put this on.
“For luck,” I agree, sliding my arms into the sleeves. The jacket feels familiar, like I’m the one who’s been wearing it every day for the past nine months, not Nolan.
“Here,” Nolan says, reaching over to roll the cuffs past my wrists. “We wouldn’t want to risk—” He cuts himself off.
“Risk what? That my hands would get lost in the too-long sleeves and I wouldn’t be able to wield my mystical magical weapon like I’m supposed to?”
Nolan doesn’t answer, intent on pushing the sleeves up my arms. There are already so many unpleasant sensations floating around my body—knots in my stomach, dry mouth, sweaty palms—that for once his touch hardly makes much difference.
“Aren’t you scared?” I ask softly.
“Of course,” Nolan answers.
“You don’t look scared.”
Nolan looks up at me and smiles. “I’ve got a pretty good poker face.”
I shake m
y head. If I fail, Nolan could end up like Anna—not just dead, but his spirit tethered to the demon, trapped in a world of torment, at risk of being forgotten forever.
I take a deep breath and say, “Promise me you’ll run, if things start to look bad. If it looks like I’m going to fail, just get out of here, as quickly as you can. Before the demon can—” The lump in my throat makes it impossible to say the word kill. Instead, I say, “Before it can hurt you.”
“I’m not going to leave you—”
“Just promise. Please.”
“Okay,” Nolan finally says, nodding. “I promise.”
He follows me into the living room, where Mom is sitting in a chair across from the TV like a zombie. (I wonder if zombies are real too. I’ll have to ask Victoria when all of this is over.) Mom barely acknowledges Nolan’s presence, though he politely says, “Hello Ms. Griffith.” I wonder whether she even remembers that she told him to call her that. She’s wearing black jeans and a charcoal gray sweater, like maybe I’m not the only one who thought dark colors were the most appropriate wardrobe for tonight.
Victoria arrives at nine, dressed in her usual dark, long witchy clothes. When I open the door to let her in, I hear thunder rumbling in the distance. Still, I think it might actually be warmer outside than it is inside. At least for me.
“We’re just sitting in the living room, watching the clock.” I gesture for her to follow me into the next room. But when I turn around, Mom is standing behind us, blocking the way. She barely moved when Nolan got here. Why does she care now that Victoria is here?
“Mom,” I say, trying to sound like this isn’t the single weirdest night of my life, “This is my . . .” I don’t know what to call her. My friend? My teacher? My nonmentor? Finally I say, “This is Victoria Wilde. She’s from our school.”
The Haunting of Sunshine Girl Page 21